Saturday, July 20, 2013

Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Because novelist/screenwriter
Thomas McGuane’s literary voice was such an enjoyably eccentric component of
’70s cinema (his big-screen work tapered off in subsequent decades), it doesn’t
really matter that ’70s films bearing his name have weak stories. What the
pictures lack in narrative momentum, they make up for in personality. Rancho Deluxe, written by McGuane and
directed by the adventurous Frank Perry, is an offbeat modern Western that’s a
comedy by default—which is to say that while the movie has amusing elements,
it’s primarily a character study. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack and
Cecil, low-rent cattle rustlers plaguing a ranch owned by the vituperative John
Brown (Clifton James). Eventually, John gets fed up with losing livestock and
hires thugs to apprehend the rustlers. First come inept ranch hands Burt
(Richard Bright) and Curt (Harry Dean Stanton), both of whom are too horny and
lackadaisical to devote much energy toward criminal investigation. Then John
brings in a thief-turned-detective, Henry (Slim Pickens), whose idiosyncratic
approach mostly involves setting traps and waiting for the rustlers to stumble
across his path. Also thrown into the mix are John’s short-tempered wife, Cora
(Elizabeth Ashley), and Henry’s hot-to-trot daughter, Laura (Charlene Dallas).

McGuane
mostly eschews dramatic tension, opting instead for closely observed scenes of
quirky characters behaving in ways that reveal their nature. There’s a great
bit, for instance, when Jack and Cecil kidnap a car and shoot it full of holes,
partially to make a point and partially to pass the time. In moments like this,
McGuane’s script captures the slow rhythms of rural life, as well as the
bedrock Western virtue of rugged individualism. In scene after scene, McGuane
ensures that his characters evince surprising dimensions. Consider party girl
Mary (Maggie Wellman), who reveals unexpected cultural sophistication with her
comment about a dinner spread: “This is a weird mixture of yin and yang—so many
animal karmas have bit the dust here.” Elsewhere, Stanton’s character tries to
look macho while standing outside John’s mansion and running a vacuum over an
Indian rug per instructions from the lady of the house. Virtually every minute
of Rancho Deluxe is interesting in
some way or another, but that’s not quite enough to compensate for the
generally aimless feel of the piece. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to enjoy thanks
to McGuane’s quirky writing and the generally lively performances. Pickens and
Stanton are the standouts, with Pickens’ down-home bluster and Stanton’s
laconic vibe suiting the material especially well, though Bridges, James, and
Waterston each provide likeable characterizations.